Categorizing the various levels of protein and nucleic acid structures is a relatively straightforward concept students understand quickly when shown representative structural images. However, keeping in mind the idea of primary, secondary, and tertiary structure proves more difficult when students are in the laboratory setting simply looking at a…

We describe a novel, university-level, introductory biology course that uses evolution as a narrative framework. Our course conveys the content in an introductory biology course by telling the story of the evolution of life on Earth. We begin with early Earth environments in which biological molecules and processes evolved and led to the first…

Conditioned fear memories that are context-specific shortly after conditioning generalize over time. We exposed rats to a context reminder 30 d after conditioning, which served to reinstate context-specificity, and investigated how this reminder alters retrieval-induced activity in the hippocampus and anterior cingulate cortex (aCC) relative to a…

Statistical methods are indispensable to the practice of science. But statistical hypothesis testing can seem daunting, with P-values, null hypotheses, and the concept of statistical significance. This article explains the concepts associated with statistical hypothesis testing using the story of "the lady tasting tea," then walks the…

I describe and evaluate a fun and simple role-playing exercise that allows students to actively work through the process of translation. This exercise can easily be completed during a 50-minute class period, with time to review the steps and contemplate complications such as the effects of various types of mutations.

In 1994, America took a giant step backward in understanding intelligence and how it can be cultivated. Richard Herrnstein, a psychology professor at Harvard University, and Charles Murray, a political scientist with the American Enterprise Institute, published "The Bell Curve," a best-selling book that was controversial among…

This module was initially developed for a course in applications of mathematics in biology. The objective of this lesson is to investigate how the allele and genotypic frequencies associated with a particular gene might evolve over successive generations. The lesson will discuss how the Hardy-Weinberg model provides a basis for comparison when…

This article describes experiments for an undergraduate instrumental analysis laboratory that aim to observe individual double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) molecules using fluorescence microscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM). dsDNA molecules are observed under several different conditions to discuss their chemical and physical properties. In…

The past 50 years have seen dramatic changes in childhood psychopathology research. The goal of this overview is to contrast observational and experimental research approaches; both have grown more complex such that the boundary between these approaches may be blurred. Both are essential. Landmark observational studies with long-term follow-up…

We conducted a series of summer workshops on bioinformatics to increase educators' knowledge of this new field of inquiry with the assumption that their knowledge will, in turn, impact student achievement. The workshops incorporated experiential learning and self-reflection (Loucks-Horsley et al. 1998). Educators demonstrated significant increases…

In this monograph, the authors have brought the findings of the English and Romanian Adoptee (ERA) study up to age 15 years and, in so doing, have focused especially on the question of whether there are deprivation-specific psychological patterns (DSPs) that differ meaningfully from other forms of psychopathology. For this purpose, their main…

Sensitivity theory attempts to account for the variability often observed in challenging behavior by recourse to the "aberrant motivation" of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In this article, we suggest that a functional analysis based on environmental (challenging environments) and biological (challenging needs) motivating…

Models are often used when teaching science. In this paper historical models and students' ideas about genetics are compared. The historical development of the scientific idea of the gene and its function is described and categorized into five historical models of gene function. Differences and similarities between these historical models are made…

The aim of this literature review is to assess the current state of knowledge regarding differences and similarities between the inattentive (IA) and combined (C) subtypes of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in order to detail challenges concerning further conceptualization, diagnostics, and treatment. The literature on ADHD-IA and…

Discusses genetic algorithms in information retrieval, especially for relevance feedback, and evaluates the efficacy of a genetic algorithm with various order-based fitness functions for relevance feedback in a test database. Compares results with the Ide dec-hi method, one of the best traditional methods. (Contains 56 references.) (Author/LRW)